[ Produced by ]

[ Cast ]

[ Staff ]

[ Production Company ]

SHOCHIKU

[ Distributor (Japan) ]

SHOCHIKU

[ Story ]

Tamiji Nishiyama (Kiyoshi Atsumi) returns from war with last messages from his fallen comrades to their wives, sweethearts and parents.
The A-bomb had killed his family in Hiroshima and he lives in Tokyo with a whore (Mayumi Ogawa), who unknown to him, is the wife of a fallen comrade.
He runs a small but thriving restaurant with his friend, but is more interested in delivering the letters.
He can seldom find his old comrades' families, some are dead, others missing because the air raids had turned cities and streets to ashes. One of the addressees is an ex-minister imprisoned as a war criminal. "It is unforgivable," his son accuses him in the letter, "that youth die in fighting and the aged survive. I hate you, Father."
Another is a female corpse-cleaner from Nagasaki, the A-bomb blast had driven out of town. There are also a doctor who has lost his two sons, a housewife who has gone insane, a student who has committed murder and been executed, a masseuse and a geisha who shows no interest.
Tamiji receives a letter from the whore he used to live with, who is seriously ill and she wants him to read her husband's last letter before she dies.
The woman who remarried her husband's friend is shocked to know her ex-husband had been living even after her remarriage.
He finds the wife of one of his comrades and, to his greatest surprise, finds his old friend - alive! But his wife is not the woman addressed, his real wife had already betrayed him. "You are a fool," he says, "spending eight years delivering the letters. Forget it! Burn the letters. After so many years they make nothing but trouble."